this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2026
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_States
Come on
Puerto Ricans have been US Citizens for over a hundred years and there has been a lot of support among Democrats for making them a state with senators and congressmen. The two most recent territories were Northern Mariana Islands in 1986 which was controlled by the UN following WWII during which they were controlled by the Dai Nippon Empire which attacked the USA, and before that U.S. Virgin Islands in 1917 which were sold to the USA by Denmark.
The USA does not own colonies. Commonwealth territories are self governing.
The dollar as the reserve currency does serve to extract wealth from other countries and bring it to America. Nato doctrine is explicit that in event of a war involving Nato every other member country's military falls under US command.
The US also has this agreement with South Korea. In event of war the South Korean military would take their orders from the US military.
I think America is an Empire but it is a much more benign form of empire than the British or French pre WW2, for now. Events like Iraq and now Venezuela are changing that.
Not how NATO works, exactly. When a NATO member is attacked all NATO members have the obligation to defend that nation, it's unlikely that they would start taking orders from the pentagon but rather the territory who was attacked and/or invoked the articles.
To describe the world's largest anti-war mutual defence pact as a Hostile Empire only proves that you're in favor of the actual Hostile Empires impeded by such an anti-war mutual defence pact.
Fun Fact: Donald Trump, who is the person responsible for the recent invasion of Venezuela, opposes NATO and has tried to withdraw from it multiple times.
Did I say hostile empire? You said that. I said more benign than previous empires.
I would rather live in the US than Russia or China, and If I didn't already live here, I would rather my country align with the US than Russia or China.
That doesn't mean there haven't been costs. Those cost might be worth paying. I don't think the UK, Canada, or Germany have been fools to align with the US, even if they may be rethinking that alignment now.
The context of this discussion has been quite clear, imperialism is bad.